A Brief Introduction to Machine Learning

Machine learning is not a very well-defined term in the industry. There is a variety of definitions available in multiple textbooks and e-resources. The general difference between statistical modeling and machine learning is a much talked about topic but is still a very ambiguous term. At a high level, we can call machine learning an advanced layer in the predictive stack of decision science; an area where powerful algorithms and techniques use data to learn patterns and relationships to predict an outcome.

We started our predictive journey using statistical modeling. You learned how to implement and use various statistical models such as linear regression, logistic regression, and decision trees. We'll now try solving the same problem using more advanced algorithms that will give us better results. Before we start, we still want to know: what is machine learning and how is it different from statistical modeling?

In a single sentence, machine...